Ranger Archive
Thread: The Ultimate Creature Hunter vision. (Long, fishing for your ideas)
In our recent Top 5 issues responseswe were told that the grand vision for Rangers is for us to be the "Ultimate Creature Hunters". Later in that thread Thunderheart wrote, "Help define it [the vision] so I NRaas can bring me the best of your ideas. Thats all I ask and I will get it dev attention." Well I figured might as well start trying to define it now. This post will (hopefully) get people thinking about what Rangersmust have (or have changed)to be Ultimate Creature Hunters. There have been many ideas tossed around for months, and it would be nice to have those and lots of new ones (your a creative bunch and you know it) in one place. And remember we cant be uber super duper gods, so try to be more realistic. Anyways, heres my take on it all.(be kind, and more disclaimer type things at bottom
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Wayfaring : What we get now is the ability to crawl fast and to use Camo kits. So its all about movement (as the name implies, its great when things make sense huh.)
I will start with the actual movement part. We need more than crawl fast (who here honestly uses prone position tomove about outside of crawling races), we need on your feet running fast. Rangers (Army, dunedain, wilderness types, etc.) spend a lot of time outdoors. They know how to move, quickly and quietly, in all types of terrain. Anyone who spends as much time outdoors as the name Ranger would imply is going to be fit (whos gonna win in a race...someone who runs everyday, or that fat couch potato watching reruns of Jerry Springer) and you need speed in hunting. I think over all kinds of terrains, mountains and forests and plains, we need a speed advantage over anyone on foot (not all creatures). But it needs to be subtle. Not so small to be useless, and not so big to be unrealistic and unbalanced. In a combat situation it should not allow those of us who are ranged to indefinantely kite a slower non-ranger, nor should it allow us to run faster than mounts (well maybe as fast as the slower ones, but im not sure how fast they run). But over bigger distances (100m, 500m, 1000m) it should start to be more and more apparent.
Some people will say theres no point in it, that vehicles and mounts make it worthless. But it reinforces the idea of a ranger (we are kinda like the advance scouts of the group, or should be imho), it can help when we want to explore (those who enjoy that), and you all know there will be times when just running on foot will be more conveinent and possibly safer than popping that camp to call the stupid mount who wont follow your commands, or the vehicle that tears past everything before it has a chance to spawn.
And onto the concealment part of wayfaring. Basically I like the idea of camo kits and conceal, I dont think a WHOLE lot needs to be changed. I very very much want it to be effective against NPC's. Since they dont have senses as good as an animals, we should be able to sneak past without making a 100m arc around them. In combat, I think its ok if conceal doesn't help us a bit there. An animal may not know that the red thing is a bolt of energy thats going to burn it severly, and that a person is shooting it at them, but a humanoid will know when they have a blaster being fired at them, and unless they are blind and deaf, they will know where it came from pretty fast.
I think its good that it has a longer duration, but I think it needs to be more powerful. It should RARELY break on a skilled ranger, and should be just as good as a high mask scent or better on a non-ranger. Its a passive skill, right now it and mask scent give us one extra shot against a creature before detection if ranged, and no extra shots against NPC's, we arent using it to kill, so let us run around w/o fear of it breaking 2 feet from a Rancor with a serious attitude problem. And I am actually opposed to conceal having any effect whatsoever in PVP. If they want us to be creature hunters, fine, but even if that wasnt the vision, I dont think its fair to the other classes, and you would hear the cry NERRRRFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! before the Devs could even utter a word about it.
If we cant have that (or if DEV's really are angels, With stuff like that) I think the actualy crafting of camo kits should be changed. Instead of 1 kit for each planet that is an utter pain in the a** to gather resources for, there should be just 1 kit for all planets, only it should be like a base kit. So you get maybe 1 specific resource from a planet and add it to that kit to make it effective on said planet. I mean, as far as I know, even in the Star Wars Universe, bones are white...should it matter where you get them?
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Fronteiring : What we get now is big purdy camps that dont repell aggros, and the AMAZING(ha!) ability to dig up roots and fish bait.
I dont have any ideas about foraging other than fix the bugs, personally it seems like a weak ability to me, just some kind of after thought of the devs.
Camping...wow the ideas people have about this one, almost all of them good (opinion). Of course fix the bugs like not repelling the aggro mobs and such. Hunting blinds, shuttle drop camps (heard that idea at least once, seems feasible), etc. etc.Unfortunantely im getting tired and I cant think of any of my own ideas for camps right now, so I'll leave it up to yall to put down some ideas for this part of the profession, and ill just quietly move on to the next skill tree.
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Which is Tracking! : What we get now is a slighlty buggyish unreliable area track ability, and some extra resources while harvesting, and actual knowledge about creatures (specials, etc).
knowledge stuff seems good to me, ideas anyone?
Extra resources first, since I think I can get through it faster. I dont know exactly how much extra we get from this, which has me a little worried, it may be a lot, or just a few units. I think since we know so much about the creatures we hunt, we should know how to use every part of them once they are dead. I dont think we should have to waste anything. Make sure we are getting extra resources, and maybe in groups they could give us a bigger and bigger percentage harvesting as we go to master. I think its 60 something percent now on harvests? So maybe they could work it up to about 75% or so, again relating to knowing so much about critters, we should know how to get as much out of them as possible. Also I think we should be able to harvest more than one resource type, maybe all 3 at master ranger. But if they didnt want us to flood market with resources, drop the percentage that we harvest as we harvest more of the 3 types, possibly even below the current 60 something percent (doesnt make a whole lot of sense, but keeping a sane economy and all that).
Tracking needs some fleshing out in my opinion. The interface needs an overhaul, it should be more organized, easier to read, etc. The skill seems buggy and sort of unreliable right now because of how the spawn system works, and how its designed to work, and they really need to find a fix for it. We should know that den of razor cats is 300 meters away when we are 300 meters away, not finding it when we are 3 meters away. Also we shouldnt havethings on area track not appear when we run there, or at least give us some kind of immersive, unannoying explanation for their dissapearance. I believe we should be able to track specific creatures (if anyone can flesh this out please do). One thing I would really like to see is more information about the creatures we track. Possibilites are is it a lair or pack of animals we are seeing (you can sorta tell now, but it would be conveinent to just say a "Lots of foot prints, big lair ahead!" kinda thing), or if the creature is injured, maybe one track in lighter than the other, or a foot is being dragged, or if theres a fight going on (something about the far distant sounds of blaster bolts and enraged roars that just tells you something is trying to tear another somethings throat out...lots of somethings on that one huh )
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And on to the final line....Trapping : What we get now is rescue (assisted suicide anyone), and 2 not so grand traps.
Rescue first. Unless you've had a lot of practice with this, chances are this ability can get you killed awful fast, which is no help to the friend you just rescued. A hunter, an Ultimate Creature Hunter at that, should be able to act rationaly when saving someones life from a mad creature. Sure running over and hopping in its mouth to take the place of your friend could work momentarily, and is maybe more dramatic, but rather painful and unpleasant. We should be able to use Rescue to distract the creature momentarily. Not for too long of course, but it should be disoriented by this ability long enough for us to do something to keep both people alive like throwing a phec dart or adhesive mesh, just a few seconds.
Traps need some serious loving to make us ultimate creature hunters. Our two traps arent much more useful than scout traps, and the AoE can get us in more trouble than we can handle too. One of my ideas for traps is just a basic ol....trap...for trapping critters. It should be a placed trap that stays until it does it job(10-15 minutes or so). What it should do is actually "trap" (read, guarantee a spawn, giving you killed creatures would suck, too much like a harvester, besides we are supposed to be hunters, we want to kill them ourselves). The good thing would be that it wont make the lair (I know, sounds stupid to trap a lair, but the more the merrier) spawn until you get within say, 80-100m,so your almost assured to get the spawn. It shouldnt allow you to trap absolute specific types of creatures though, it should be more broad. Say when you craft the trap you bait it with meat, or something you foraged, so that you would trap either herbivores or carnivores. This could be a great trap for rangers. In groups you could either go out 30 minutes or so before the hunt and place traps where you want, make waypoints at those traps, and then lead your group to each of them. Or just pick a nice spot, place a camp so your group can take a seat, go out and place a trap 200m away, then take them back in a few minutes to kill what you trapped, rinse and repeat. And same thing for solo hunting
I also think we should have some traps that are VERY lethal. Maybe not allow them to completely kill the creature, but really help us do it. If movie folk can make a pile of rocks and then push them down the hill onto some unsuspecting something, or make one of those log on a rope rams come swinging out of the treesto crush another something, we should be able to figure out how to make a creature hurt bad. This is the line for the killing part of an Ultimate Creature Hunter, the others are for the hunt before the fight.
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Thats it, sorry it took so long 
Those are my ideas for the "vision" of Ranger. I guess I got more sloppy near the end and stopped supporting so well, but its 3 a.m. and im tired I just thought I should put this down tonight or might forget tommorow. Praise, add to, flame, tear apart, do whatever you want with this. But ADD TO or CHANGE is what im really looking for here, the more ideas we have the better it will be later (remember what Thunderheart said). And if you can prove some of my ideas are wrong or not feasable that is fine, being proved wrong still helps bring this profession one step closer to being something great!
Ohh and sorry for all my ( blah blah blah ) bits in there, I cant help it sometimes
Good Night Everyone
Morbal, you and I were probably madly typing at the same time, so i'm going to complement your ideas and say that we seem to be on the same page. We NEED defenition as Rangers, but until we get skills that define us, it's hard. I have a thread that deals with the same issues that you raised here (i won't post link as that would be shameless self-promotion). Anyway I just wanted to say that i like your ideas on what should happen IF we are to become the ultimate creature hunters. I think it's important though for Rangers to get an idea of how many people saw that as their proffession. True,we are right now the best creature hunters, but I didn't become a Ranger for that. Rangers need an identity where all ideas of what a ranger is are satisfied to some degree. We need a defining set up skills/weapons certifications (like Bounty Hunters) so that we can set ourselves aside. Honestly, a Master Rifleman/Master Scout is just as effective a hunter as me, they just get fewer resources. Big deal, they have plenty of skill points left over that they can put into CH or medic or anything else. If Rangers are going to survive, changes must be made, both in the game and the way the players play it. We need at least some unique ways that ALL rangers can see themselves.
Excellent ideas here. This is what posting at 3am EST is all about people. Take notice.
okay, screw what i said before. it's time for shameless self-promotion. I think this post, along with mine, entitled "The Ranger Identity Crisis" both ask for a lot of ideas about the future of the Ranger Profession. Questions need to be answered and only people who respond are going to help. My responce to this thread is MY thread, where I list lots of ideas and such and ask for more. So if you want to see my ideas, check out my thread. Sorry about this, Morbal, I hate listing my thread in yours (okay, so it's not shameless, I actually DO feel bad) buti didn't feel like typing all my ideas all over again in your post
Let me explain where I am coming from first, then I will give an explanation of where the class should go. I am not a master ranger and will not pursue that avenue until the devs fix it, BUT I want the class to be useful as I really like the idea of ranger/rifleman. Anyway here is my take on the current skillz.
1. Wayfaring - The camo kits are a great idea, but the current bugs and them not working on NPC makes this line all but useful. My current level of maskscent (MS+bio clothing) allows me to reapply it 6 seconds after it breaks and it rarely breaks. I haven't used the camo kits, but I from what I have read, they aren't much better and they require resources.
2. Camping - Larger camps that require more resources and give less benifit. If the owner engages in combat or people leave the camp for too long, it becomes abandoned and useless. The repeling aggro creatures doesn't work and I believe the don't even give and actual increase in regen rates. At least I haven't noticed it.
3. Tracking - Ah, the one skill that I have actually taken all the way to level 4. I really like the skill, but it is bugged. I have had creatures not show up on it that I can clearly see. The limited range is also very annoying, as is the none spawning creatures. The ability to see extra info on the creatures is great as well.
4. Traps - I have the same problem with this tree as I do with the scout tree. The traps make creatures go aggro no matter what and they don't always work. I have found that the phe.. dart and the adhesive mesh are insanely bugged and almost never inflict there effect. I cannot count the times I have thrown the trap, gotten the exp, only to have the creature walk through the effects with no ill effect. The ranger traps are worse and the rescue skill blows.
Now that I have explained myself, let me give my suggestions:
1. Wayfaring - Camo kits should work against NPCs and be a step-up from maskscent. As an avid hunter I can attest to the fact that people and wildlife have a very hard time picking up a camoflauged hunter. If a camoflauged ranger shoots a bleed shot, one and only one bleed, the creature/NPC should NEVER be able to figure out where it came from. I have shot deer, regarded as having some the best senses inthe wild, atabout 150 yds. and have them not run because they couldn't figure out where I was shooting from. The rangersshould have the same benefit.
2. Camping - Ranger camps should allowpeople to come and go as they please.The ranger should be able to engage in combat without having the camp go bye-bye. The camp should go on a timeonce the last person leaves and thenauto disband once the timer hits zero, say 30 minutes. The camps should repel aggro creatures. Higher level camps should increase healing rates over lower level camps. Caribiu (spelling?) hunting is done by setting up the camp in front of the herd and then shooting them as the move THROUGH the camp.
3. Tracking - A Ranger should be able to track specific animals. Areatrack is good, but needs to be fixed and doesn't fully define what a ranger should be able to do. High level rangers, maybe even masters only, should be able to get a track skill. This would allow them to track down specific creatures. If I want to track down a Bol, and the closest one is 5000m away, so be it. Currently, people have just as good a chance of finding there desired critter by flying around on vehicles as they do by getting a ranger to track it down. I have had several people ask me to track this or that, only to be disappointed when I explain how the skill works. At a minimum the range should be increase and an arrow should be brought up pointing to the selected critter.
4.Traps - Frist, fix the bugs in the current traps, adhesice mesh should STOP a creature for a number of seconds dependant on the creature level. I have seen it stopONE razor cat for 5 seconds after using the trap multiple times on multiple creatures, that's it. Second, make some actual traps, not aggro generating resource hogs. A ranger should be able to set several traps around a layer and return some time later, say 15 minutes and have some creatures that are ROOTED in place. The higher level the creature, more likely it is to break out of the trap. If I trap a Rancor, it should be able to break out of the trap much easier than a durni, which should never get out of the trap. Obviously, the higher your level, the better your traps. Another idea would be to have a "farm" trap. If you set up a trap(s) in a certian area(s), for specific creatures, you could trap them in a similar way that mines extract resources. Only thing is, you haveto release and kill the creatures from the trap toget the resources. This would save the HOURS ofwalking around killinglow level creatures to get hides/bones/meat.
First thing to do is some balancing changes. Our harvests should be better than scouts. No, I'm not talking about some measly 20% bonus. Much much much better than scouts. I'd say at least double the harvests from master scout just at the novice box or ranger, and each tracking box should increase it an additional 50% or so. In addition to this, I'd implement the idea that everyone else has been suggesting, and that is the ability to harvest multiple types of resources. So say at box 2 you can harvest 2 different resources (e.g. meat and bone off of the same carcus) and then at master you get all 3.
Traps: we need at least 2 or 3 traps PER box, and they need to be effective. Effectiveness against the big critters is essential. I could think of many desirable ones, like maybe a poison trap: spring it, run, and see the critter slowly die. Also an uber powerful trap that would stop a creature dead in its tracks and allow for a successful getaway.
Wayfaring: lets be brutally honest here, with the advent of mounts and vehicles this skill is completely worthless. Master scout's have real good mask scent, and that's more than enough for a ranger. So I'd just get rid of this entire line and replace it with something else. My suggestion would be perhaps have a separate line of hunting effectiveness whereby Rangers get critical hit abilities while hunting. At least that would be useful. Also in this line could be some concealment ability that would work *while in combat*. So for example a ranger could decide to bail out of a combat that is going badly, and conceal right there and then, and exit the combat.
Frontiering: ok, again this is largely useless today. Balancing issues right off the bat should be to allow these camps to stick around during combat, and repel aggro creatures, not occasionally, but every time. We need *lots lots* more good forageable items as well. Not just the same old ones that scouts get. Also, this line would be an ideal place to add the ability to obtain fish and milk much more easily then other professions.
I posted my support and ideas in Phenix1050's thread, but I'll repeat myself anyway. Only I'll do it shorter. (You're welcome!)
Harvesting: we should not only get more resources than Scouts when harvesting but we should be the only profession that gets to pick which resource we want. At Novice we can pick from what's available while all Scouts have had to take a random resource, like it was in Beta for a long time. A Scout might think that the hides and bones are too messed up after a creature's death but the meat looks good while a Ranger would be able to find a way to use any of these. Then at a higher level we could pick two types, and at Master we could get up to all three as well as the chance to get a 'trophy' from the creature.
Camps: we're supposed to get camps that are separate from what we get now -- hunting blinds that would be used specifically for hunting, which would allow us to leave and come back as we please. These may not have a healing ability to them, just greater camoflouge. Details of when and what they will do haven't been discussed on the boards that I know of.
Tracking: we're supposed to get a separate tracking skill that will not only allow us to find a specific creature and give us a waypoint, but will also spawn a creature just for this purpose. It would probably only spawn a single creature and no lair, but this will still be helpful. Also no details of when.
Traps: we're supposed be getting traps that are set ahead of time, but again, the details of when and what they will do is scarce.
These last three types of things, new camps, a new tracking skill, and new traps, were all talked about in the same post that told us about /areatrack and /conceal, so we've been waiting quite a while for these to come about. Until they do, we will be far from the "Ultimate Creature Hunters" that the Devs envision us to be (and I agree with).
Heh if you take notice I think that Rangers are some of the most like minded players of all the proffessions. We all think it should be pretty much the same wayor atleast all have perfectly good reasons for something.
Yup, and that's definitely a good thing. If we can show that a large majority of us agree with specific, balanced, and positive suggestions and improvements, hopefully the developers will take notice and take our requests into serious consideration.
Yay, us!
Wayfaring
As far as I noticed Camo works on other players too. That's a big mistake. If an Army Ranger would put me into camo clothing and put some paint into my face it really wouldn't help. I would be like a herd of elephants anyway and be toast pretty quick.
Camo should be a skill and not be applied with camo kits and it should only work for the ranger himself.
It should be an auto-use skill that hides the ranger because he knows how to use his surroundings in advantage and knows how to move silent. For this reason it should work better on NPCs than on creatures since creatures have better senses. Mask scent used additionally will hide the ranger completely also from creatures until the ranger acts hostile. Then camo will break (masc scent may still be up)
Regarding speed.. well, I don't crawl a lot if ever.
Frontiering
First, I like foraging. Some buffs are really nice
About camps, hmm.. I really don't understand why a ranger can build a camp that puts every architect to shame.
Also Rangers are (or should be
) camo specialists. Why would a Ranger build a camp that you can see from 2km away?This tree is about wilderness survival and therefore should not be about huge, massive camps. Not sure what should be put in here, but camps are a bad idea imho. Maybe delayed attacks by creatures like: at 1st box you get the message that creature x is about to attack you and have 1 second to react until it finally attacks you. For every box you gain 1 second. This way you can either burst run away or land a first strike which could give a slight bonus, because you surprised the creature with your reaction and its therefore more vulnerable for this one strike from you.
Tracking
Imho only minor changes needed as described in other posts.
Trapping
Same as Tracking.